The Vanishing American
About The Vanishing American
The opening shows earlier peoples in Monument Valley driven out, then Europeans. In the twentieth century the Navajo leader Nophaie, played by Richard Dix, finds the agent Booker, played by Noah Beery, stealing the tribe's horses. The teacher Marian Warner, played by Lois Wilson, has taught Nophaie to read and tells him the world war is a fight that will treat Native people better. He brings horses for Captain Earl Ramsdale and enlists. He comes home to a worse reservation, warns the whites when fighting starts, and dies in Marian's arms. Booker dies too.
Cast & crew
More about The Vanishing American
George B. Seitz directed. Lucien Hubbard adapted Zane Grey's novel. Ethel Doherty wrote the scenario. C. Edgar Schoenbaum and Harry Perry photographed. Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky produced. Paramount released it on 15 October 1925. 110 minutes. Hugo Riesenfeld wrote the score. Shot on the Navajo Nation in Utah and Arizona. Gary Cooper has an unbilled part. The novel had run in Ladies' Home Journal in November 1922. Harper delayed the book and changed it after missionaries objected. A 1955 remake starred Scott Brady and Audrey Totter.
Themes
Background
The story runs from the older occupation of the valley through the reservation system and into the 1914–18 war, then back to the agency.
Making
Paramount sent Seitz to Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge, and the canyons around Tuba City rather than building the reservation on a lot.
Reviews
Motion Picture News in 1925 called it "an epic of the Indian" and expected it to be popular for the scenery. Mordaunt Hall, in The New York Times, held back on the acting and praised the photography, the cliff-dwelling scenes, the war scenes, and Riesenfeld's score. Kevin Brownlow later wrote that the film shows the government's betrayal of the Indians plainly.
Look
C. Edgar Schoenbaum and Harry Perry shot Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge, Tsegi Canyon, Tuba City, and Sagi Canyon. Hall called the photography the film's strength.
Music
Hugo Riesenfeld composed the score Hall mentioned.
Preservation
Prints survive, including a copy on Wikimedia Commons. The Library of Congress holds material.
Notes
- Also billed are Nocki, Shannon Day as Gekin Yashi, Charles Crockett as Amos Halliday, Bernard Siegel as Do Etin, and Guy Oliver as Kit Carson.
- The film keeps a war sequence and the cliff dwellings that Mordaunt Hall singled out.
- Grey's missionaries-and-government material was softened in the book before publication. The film was already in production against the serial.
Scenes
- Booker's men take the horses. Nophaie's complaint gets nowhere.
- Marian sends him to the war with the promise that the reservation will change.
- He dies in her arms after warning the whites.
Influenced by
- The Vanishing American (novel)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Vanishing American 1925.webm)
